The Story of Davy Prentiss Junior- A narrative
by girlontheborderlines
Summary: My name is Davy Prentiss Junior, I'm fifteen in New World time (sixteen in Old World time) and I'm the sheriff of Prentisstown. I'm named after my father, David Prentiss, I never knew my mother, an' I killed a man on my thirteenth birthday. This is my story. (( cover image belongs to moi :)) ))


Morning.

I groan and roll over, peering at the slim gap in the shabby grey slips of fabric that used to be curtains. Had another ruddy terrible sleep last night, the wooden plank that's my bed felt even more stiff and unyielding than usual, an' I had another stupid dream about my thirteenth birthday, the day I became a man.

Blood dripping from the open wounds of ol' what's his face, pooling onto the dirt floor of the very room I sleep in every night, him beggin' and pleadin' and wishin' me not to slash every sorry inch of his skin off his body and his noise is white hot an' he's screaming and screaming and I'm clutchin' my head an'-

I blink. That was two ruddy years ago, Prentiss, get over it.

I grimace and slide off-ah my plank and pace the floor of my shack a few times to wake up. It's still ruddy early, early enough that the usual _**ROAR **_of noise is more of a buzz, but still there. There ain't never any quiet in Prentisstown. I sigh and lean out the window, watchin' all those effin' cult members file into pa's house. I hear them chanting the usual, all that ruddy '**I am the circle and the circle is me**' nonsense. Pa always tries to get me to join his ruddy cult, I went once but all they did was sit there and repeat that ruddy line over and over again. Ain't a point to it in my eyes.

An' yet there they are, all those old bastards with their smug grins and their shifty eyes filin' into pa's house, the big house that pa won't never let me move into cuz I'm a danger to whatever it is pa wants to discuss with those old farts so I have to sleep in this ruddy tiny shack made of bricks with holes in the walls and rot in the roof and a dirt floor and the only ruddy furniture I own is my bed and that's just a ruddy plank-ah wood propped on two large bricks and a pillow that's just a block of firewood, my blanket's a ruddy old sheepskin for eff's sake.

I grunt an' stride outside, scowling and ambling over to Deadfall. His noise is quiet; as it usually is when I approach him, guess he's scared of me for whipping and cussin' at him when he doesn't obey.

_**Obey,**_ Deadfall whinnies and tosses his head in response to my noise and rolls his eyes, waitin' for me to mount up. I slide into the saddle in my shabby shirt that's gone yellow with age and smells like mildew and sweat from the amount of times I've slept in it and not washed it.

I pick up my gun outta the holster in the saddle an' load it, relishing the click as the bullets slide into place. Rifles are the best guns to fire, man they have mean kick in 'em, but it's ruddy satisfyin' watching the bullet hit home once you've fired that baby.

Deadfall canters down the small slope into town, eyein' up every little thing we pass, shouting _**'**__**OBEY!'**_ in his noise whenever a grey squirrel skitters past taunting us with **_'whirler horse, whirler boy' _**an' no matter how much I tell both of 'em to shut the eff up it ain't gonna make much of a difference at all. The morning buzz is growing into the usual crescendo of sound that makes it hard to think an' even harder to protect yerself from pryin' eyes.

We ride past the old church that's pretty much rotten and crumbling an' I hear preacher Aaron ramblin' on about god's wrath and how if one of us falls we all fall and everyone in that sermon's thinkin' **Todd Hewitt the last boy in Prentisstown**, and** not long now**, and** ending** and they're all darkly excited for some reason cuz Todd becomin' a man means we get to leave this godforsaken swamp once and fer all. Todd Hewitt that good fer nothin' bucket of pigpiss is like the baby of Prentisstown. It always makes me feel oddly gleeful watchin' him picking swamp apples all by hisself with only that mangy dog Manchee to keep him company. I can hear them now, weaving through the trees just on the outskirts of town, Manchee barkin' and making a racket and Todd tellin' him to shut the eff up.

I sigh and sit up straighter in the saddle as I pass the old gas station, or convenience store or whatever you wanna call it. Effing crazy old Mr Hammer watches me from the only good window left in the building and even tho' I ain't meeting his eyes I can still tell he's smiling that creepy grin of his.

I stop deadfall and glare right at him an' he just smiles wider.

In his noise he's killing me, stabbing a compass into my throat or strangling me with a bit of nylon cord, and he's laughin' and shooting me in the head and watchin' me bleed out on his hardwood floor.

And with as much hatred and anger as I can I return those images, 'cept it's me killing him. I picture myself shooting him in the mouth and kickin' in his face 'till it don't look much like a face anymore and dragging his body into the swamp for the crocs to eat and I'm watching them jump on his lifeless corpse and they're thinkin' **_eat eat eat._**

And ruddy crazy old Mr Hammer smiles at me, he effing smiles, and this time, he's killing a woman in his noise.

She ain't as beautiful or full-figured as most of the women in men's noises, and she certainly ain't as well endowed, but she's rather pretty, and even when Mr Hammer takes out his blade and runs it down the left side of her face she don't flinch, she meets his gaze with steely determination and so much bravery that Mr Hammer wavers but then he stabs her over an' over again and she cries out and he's smiling that twisted smile again, and I don't know why but the image disturbs me more than if it was him killing me instead of her.

Cuz that woman's got red-brown hair and tanned skin and freckles like mine and even tho' I ain't got the slightest idea what my ma looked like I know if she was still alive that's exactly what she'd look like, and I turn away and kick Deadfall's flanks hard and we're running so fast it feels like we're ruddy flyin', and I try to ignore the triumphant blast of malicious, grey, hate filled noise that Mr Hammer throws at me one last time before I'm outta sight but I just can't.

And I know that was my ma.

And I'm ruddy scared, tho' I hate to admit it, cuz-

It seemed like Mr Hammer killing my ma wasn't just a sick fantasy.

It had felt all too real.

And I can't help but think that maybe pa _does_ hate me-

Cuz I don't look nothin' like him, I look just like my ma, and it damn near killed him when she died. He always says it's weak to love somethin' so much it can control you, and I can't help but think that he didn't start thinkin' that way 'till ma died. He never talks about her, I ain't never seen a picture of her in his noise, I don't even know what her name was but I reckon he wishes I was more like her. She seemed so brave and defiant but kind at the same time.

And I vow to myself right then that I'll never love someone like Pa loved Ma, cuz if it damn near killed him when she died, it'd sure as hell kill me. Now I think that pa can't possibly hate me. But maybe he does, maybe he hates me cuz he loves me and he hates it, cuz maybe if he lost me, it would almost kill him like Ma's death did.

I bet he really loves me, I'm almost certain of it, and my noise goes pink with the thought of it, and then I'm turning round and ridin' back thru the swamp. And lo' and behold, there's Todd Pigpiss Hewitt hisself, amblin' thru the mud, cussin' to hisself about that ruddy dog of his and he's lookin' at me and frowning already and I hear in his noise **Ruddy Davy Prentiss** and it turns redder than it already was but he layers it better so I can't tell exactly what he's thinkin' but I know it's about me.

I halt Deadfall and look down at him and smile and I see his noise get stormier but I don't care.

"What do you want, Prentiss" he scowls up at me, telling me in his noise to get lost but I still stare at him.

"That's Sheriff Prentiss to you, Hewitt. I'm doin' the morning rounds."

He smirks a little and jerks his head at my chest, "Where's yer badge an' hat then_, Sheriff_?"

I know he sees the annoyance in my noise so I don't bother hiding it. "At home."

Todd steps closer to Deadfall, and he's still a short little squirt cuz he can't even look Deadfall in the eyes when he's standing right in front of him, but he stands as tall as he can anyway and points back to town. "Maybe you should go home an' get 'em."

"Careful, swamp muck" I brandish my gun and smile wide, "you might just find yerself stuck in the mud during a croc feeding frenzy if yer not careful."

Todd just ignores me and tromps further into the swamp which makes me real mad fer some reason but I swallow it down and turn my back on him, and I can hear _**Needa Poo, Todd**_ and **Shutup Manchee, go have yer ruddy poo,** and I guess the sermon's over cuz Aaron passes by me an' nods his head and I swear that man ain't right but I smile and nod back cuz I know he can hear Todd too, and he's enraged and he can hear him cussin' and I know he's gonna punch him right upside the head so I don't say nothin' and just ride back into town.

And there it is-

**Your noise reveals you, young Todd,** and a sound like bone hitting bone, and I smile.

I pass Ben an' Cillian's house and hear Cillian pottering away under that old rusty, useless generator he's so hell-bent on fixin', thinking about how he knows Todd probably likes Ben better but Cillian still loves him like a son and won't ever let anything bad happen to him, and how he'd die to protect Todd, and then he thinks of Ben, him and Ben alone at night, and they're-

He shuts off his noise as he hears me passin' and stops working to sneer at me and I sneer back because I know him and Ben both are just ruddy cowards and I look forward to the day where I get to gun them down with my rifle but I don't show him that.

Instead I ride back to my shack and stop for food cuz I'm ruddy starving and there ain't much else to eat in Prentisstown 'cept frogs and the occasional bits of stale bread.

I stick my badge on my chest and spit on it to make it shine cuz there ain't many things made of metal that still do that in Prentisstown neither. Shine, I mean. And I stick my hat down over my hair real low so no one can see my eyes and I ride down to the pub to buy a pint of fermented wheat-beer that tastes like feet, but it numbs the feeling in my face as well as any other alcohol I suppose.

I'm sitting at the bar hunched over the glass of milky liquid when I hear Todd trudgin' thru town again, but he don't sound angry anymore. He sounds scared. And Manchee's bounding around yappin' about** _quiet, quiet in the swamp_**, and all I can think is how impossible it is that there's _quiet._

And I hear it in Aaron's noise too, and Mr Hammer's, and soon, everyone's whisperin' **quiet? How can that be? **

And everyone's noises are filled with asking marks and they're all lookin' at Pa's house wonderin' what he's gonna do, but Todd can't see any of this cuz he's too much of a ruddy idiot to even consider lookin' in the first place.

So I saddle up on Deadfall again and gallop up to Pa's house.

He's waitin' on the front porch like he was expecting me, which I guess he was cuz he could see me ridin' up the hill as fast as I ruddy could and he meets my eyes which are the same steely grey as his and all he says is "David," but instantly I'm afraid.

And he points down the hill at Ben and Cillian and Todd's house and then stares into my eyes and I see exactly what he wants me to do. He don't care if Ben or Cillian don't survive. He just wants Todd. Then he gives me his good rifle and pats me on the shoulder cuz he knows I'll use it if I need to, then he nods and disappears inside.

And boy, my noise is pink, and I can't believe he trusts me enough to take care of this without much instrucshun, and I call for Mr Tate and Mr O'Hare and all the other men who're waiting just down the hill and they all fall in behind me as we walk up the hill towards their house.

The house is deserted, tools left strewn around in the thin grass, curtains shut and windows closed.

I bang on the door cuz I know they're in there, I see Cillian's reddish noise flash just before he opens the door and glares at me.

I can hear Ben and Todd slippin' out the back, and Cillian's standing in my way, try'na throw punches but all I know is I have to get Todd or Pa'll be mad so I load the rifle and I shoot, but it pings off the doorframe and misses and I can't believe how stupid I am to miss, and he's diving towards the generator and flipping a small grey switch and _**BOOM!**_

The generator explodes and we all fly back and I see stars but can't tell if they're real or just in someone's noise but I know I don't feel too good, but I can't stop reelin' and rollin'away from the blast and I see Mr Tate climb to his feet and limp over to Cillian who's lying on the ground and not sayin' nothing, but in his eyes he's ready to die and his noise is a cloud of **Ben and Todd and Ben and Todd and Manchee and son and love** and Mr Tate puts a bullet in his head and he ain't thinkin' anything anymore, and I hear Ben's noise scream Cillian's name all the way down the valley but Todd's noise is gone.

And Pa's here.

And I try to apologise but before I can even open my mouth he slaps me with his noise and there's blinding white pain in my head and it's like a million billion voices screamin' and screamin' at me-

**YER NOTHING YER NOTHING YER NOTHING YER NOTHING-**

And he lets me go and I fall to the floor and he's scowlin' at me and tellin' Mr Tate that next time I won't be in charge, and he's patting him on the back for disposin' of Cillian and I feel ruddy terrible cuz I know-

Todd Hewitt's gone-

And my Pa's disappointed in me, and that's the ruddy worst thing about all of this.


End file.
